"A mother's sacrifice is a reflection of her unwavering faith in her children's potential." My mother's unwavering sacrifices have not only shaped my life but have also ignited in me a burning determination to honor her sacrifices by seizing every opportunity that comes my way, not only for myself but for her. When you only grow up with one parent, you tend to make them your everything. They become your role model, the person who you base your entire life on. She was the sole provider for me, the person I leaned on for everything. In my eyes, my mother was perfect. She was everything I wanted to be. As I've grown, I realize that she was growing too; stumbling through life trying to play the adult that having a child forced her to be. Before having me, she was just a teen. A straight-A student, a high school wrestling champion and dancer. Due to certain disagreements with my grandmother however, she ended up leaving home when she was 17, but she persevered. She refused to let anyone, family or otherwise, tell her who she needed to be. Leaving home wasn't the end of the world for, if anything, it was freeing. She still had dreams, a bright future, and so much promise, but all of that came to a screeching halt when she had me. Her focus shifted completely and I became her center. Even with the lack of help from both my grandparents and my father, she raised me to be smart and kind and creative and strong, everything that she was. I was taught that I could love whoever I chose and that I didn't need to explain myself to anyone. My "coming out" to my mother was more of a passing comment that she didn't even bat an eye to. A simple "cool" in response before continuing with the grocery shopping. I thought this was normal. I thought parents were supposed to accept you for who you were, no matter what.That naive way of thinking was quickly crushed when during a rare visit to my grandparents I was asked if my rainbow hair was because of pride month along with the comment of "everything always has to be gay now." I froze. That was the last thing I was expecting from anyone, much less from family. No one should ever be afraid to express themselves and openly and proudly be the people that they want to be. For my mother, who is forever unapologetic for the person that she is. For my best friend, who's two moms are the best parents she could ever ask for. For my male and female friends who were born in the wrong bodies and are constantly told by society to accept it. I will pursue a degree in biopharmaceutical engineering and make advances that will allow people to feel like themselves in their bodies because everyone deserves to feel like themselves. One of the many things that I've learned from my mother is that you don't give up on your beliefs, you fight for them like your life depends on it, and for some, it does.This road I'm taking is bound to be long and perilous, but as Melia Keeton Digby wrote, "Mothers and daughters together are a powerful force to be reckoned with.".

I want to pursue a degree in biopharmaceutical engineering because I want to apply the many uses of fungi to medicine. My passion for fungi first developed in sixth grade after I stumbled upon an article that addressed self-repairing concrete through the use of bacteria. From there, my interest shifted from single-cell organisms to the more complex form of fungi. I’ve found that the potential of fungi is practically limitless, from oil decomposition to creating new life! It’s incredible that these intricate organisms made for decomposition can aid in reversing the damage that we've done to our world. A degree in biopharmaceutical engineering will aid me in better understanding these organisms and one day develop a new use for them in medicine. In this exploration of fungi, I've had one person who has always been on my side, inspiring me. My mother. My mother was a child raising a child, a mere teen when she took me on as a responsibility. I am a reflection of my mother's hard work, her waylaid dreams, and forgotten goals - I am my mother's life and she is my motivation. My motivation to get the most out of life that I possibly can. For me, and for her. I want - no - need to grab every opportunity that I can and experience everything that life has to offer. Everything that my mother wasn't able to. Everything that she gave up for me. That's the goal I've set for myself, and I will stop at nothing to achieve it. I will go farther than she did, not because I am better, or have more talent, or even more potential, but owed to the fact that I have been given an opportunity. I was given something that she wasn't. Her. One of the many things that I've learned from her is that you don't waste opportunities. When you see one, you take it, and you fight for it like your life depends on it. This road I'm taking is bound to be long and perilous, but as Melia Keeton Digby wrote, "Mothers and daughters together are a powerful force to be reckoned with." My interest in fungi isn't the only one that she my mother supports, she supports everything I do, especially my passion for being in front of an audience. Theatre: the magic of taking words from a script and using them to create worlds on stage. This is something I have been passionate about since my freshman year. I will admit, my start was a bit of a rocky one, but I am happy to boast that I now have multiple awards from UIL One Act Play theatre competitions and, most recently, received the coveted "Best Performer" award twice in a row from the district and bi-district competitions this year. Theatre is an interest the come second only to bioengineering, so there's no way I'm giving it up when I go off to college. I'm excited to experience theatre on a level where it's no longer just a high school past time to some, but rather life to the whole company.

“It’s better to be silent than to make [people] uncomfortable.” (Brave New Voices; "Somewhere in America" by Los Angeles Team, 2014.) As a society, we have collectively agreed that it is better to leave the atrocious actions against others left untold, lest we threaten the peace our ignorance bestows on us. Ignorance is a funny thing. It allows people to not have to deal with the realities of the world. Take the recent situation in Palestine. There are countless people who could be speaking out, influencers who have already been called out for actively deleting comments trying to bring awareness to the situation and warn them against supporting companies in support of the carnage, Brittany Broski for example. The thing about ignorance is that it allows you to free yourself of guilt. The guilt of choosing to be uninformed, choosing to not be aware of the situation, choosing not to care. “Out of sight, out of mind” as they say. Those who do this never stop to consider that the people in the situation that they’re choosing to ignore don’t have that option. They must live that reality, and even if we are not directly related, it is a disservice to them as fellow human beings to remain indifferent. “Boys will be boys.” Something many unfortunate girls have heard from teachers, counselors, coaches, even parents. Rather than saying something to other parents to correct the behavior, rather than putting themselves in the shoes of their students, rather than speaking to the perpetrators and teaching them that what they’re doing isn’t okay, they stay silent. This leaves kids to develop thinking that inappropriate behaviors are okay, leads girls to believe that even if they're facing an injustice, they should remain silent since they’d only be causing trouble for those around them for something that “isn’t a big deal.” Students in schools will not only be left unaware of how unacceptable certain behaviors are, but also of the extent of unacceptable behaviors that have been committed throughout history. My own state has banned requiring teachers to teach about racism and slavery in a way that portrays them for what they were: racism and slavery. It has been insisted that these topics be approached as simple lapses in judgment of the American way of liberty and equality. The reality of what African Americans went through was deemed too uncomfortable of a topic to bring up in schools, but African American students such as myself still have to live through discrimination and microaggressions, while our classmates continue to use slurs originally directed towards us that we are unable to correct because we’ll “cause a scene.” Nothing changes if we don’t start speaking out. People will still face discrimination; uncomfortable comments and actions will still be made; people will still die. The world can be an ugly place, so if we want to start making it brighter the first step is to speak up.

"You're amazing." The words were said with so much admiration, so much hope. Her face reflected the same anticipation as her voice and suddenly I couldn't look her in the eyes anymore. I wasn't used to that level of sentiment from her. At the time I thought it was new, but it must have been something I had just never perceived before, because now I find it in every stare and hear it in every word. That's not to say that my mother has never complimented me before, she has always been proud of me. The bragging to her friends and any adult who would listen never ceased to embarrass me. I always hated it, believing that she was offending the receiving party. Surely she had other things she could discuss with them? Something about herself, perhaps? "I don't have a life outside of you." There was no malice, no regret. Just a statement, almost a joke, said while she was in bed, drowning in the sheets enveloping her shorter stature while I was standing across the room, freshly dressed and groomed for an outing. As she looked at me, with that same hopeful look in her eyes, those words heavy in my chest, my world froze again. Jokes are always riddled with some level of truth, and this is one that has been hard for me to swallow. Having me took away her life. My mother was a child raising a child, a mere teen when she took me on as a responsibility. I am a reflection of my mother's hard work, her waylaid dreams, and forgotten goals - I am my mother's life and she is my motivation. My motivation to get the most out of life that I possibly can. For me, and for her. I want, no, need to grab every opportunity that I can and experience everything that life has to offer. Everything that my mother wasn't able to. Everything that she gave up for me. That's the goal I've set for myself, and I will stop at nothing to achieve it. I will go farther than she did, not because I am better, or have more talent, or even more potential, but owed to the fact that I have been given an opportunity. I was given something that she wasn't. Her. One of the many things that I've learned from her is that you don't waste opportunities. When you see one, you take it, and you fight for it like your life depends on it. This road I'm taking is bound to be long and perilous, but as Melia Keeton Digby wrote, "Mothers and daughters together are a powerful force to be reckoned with."